


Pad Crashers

by rotrude



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, Romance, sharing quarters, temporary flatmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 22:43:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1405267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rotrude/pseuds/rotrude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doing a spot of DIY, Gwaine manages to half destroy his and Merlin's flat.  As a result they've got a hole in the floor, an angry landlord to face and a case to take to court. And no roof over their heads. While they wait for Merlin and Gwaine's flat to be fixed, Merlin crashes at Arthur's, his long standing best mate. And, you know, proximity works its charm. Except it's not just that.</p><p>Written for the Tavern Tales community March challenge:  Neighbours, Roommates, Couch-Crashers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pad Crashers

“I may just have a disaster on my hands,” Gwaine says, over a loud sound Arthur can't identify, not even when he moves his handset from one ear to the other. “A serious one.”

“Okay,” Arthur says, scrambling his eggs in the pan. “What have you done this time? Two timed a couple of girls who've found out and want to mount your balls on a wall-display, stag style? Lost your rent money gambling on horses--”

“No!” Gwaine wails, loud stomping intensifying in the background. “Worse.”

“Oh my God, are you indebted to a crook who's hired a hitman to top you?”

“Hey, my life might be messed up,” Gwaine tells him, “but it's not a Jason Statham film.”

Arthur doubts that Gwaine is being entirely honest with him. He's heard the stories, from Merlin mostly, so he knows the deal. And, of course, there was that one time Gwaine spilled the beans about his Great Motorbike Tour of Europe, which featured running into a cracking but mysterious girl, a couple of heavies with a criminal past she was fleeing from, being mistaken for one of said dubious individuals, being arrested, and then finally liberated after the misunderstanding was explained. “Of course, it's not,” he says, dishing his eggs. “So what's happened this time?”

“I didn't listen to Merlin's advice.”

“Whenever do you listen to anyone's advice?” Arthur asks, thinking that a fair and pertinent question.

“Not often, granted,” Gwaine says. “But this time I knew I should have and just didn't.”

Arthur breathes out, long and even. “The point, Gwaine? Some people have got to go to work.”

“The drain rod of our sink broke.”

“So?” Arthur asks, starting to cut up his eggs so he can eat and talk. “Call a plumber, problem solved.”

“Eh,” Gwaine says. “That's what Merlin said. He put up a big sign this morning saying, 'Beyond Repair, Call plumber', but I thought I could pleasantly surprise Merlin if I fixed the sink without calling a plumber. After all, plumbers are extortioners. But it didn't go so well.”

The fork halfway to his mouth, Arthur freezes. “Shit, what have you done?”

“A spot of DIY,” Gwaine says far too lightly and dismissively for him not to be hiding the truth.

“Casualties?” Arthur asks, because he knows Gwaine's just shit at DIY even though he likes to swagger around wearing belt tools. He made several ten-inch holes in Elena's bedroom just to hang a single picture – of a horse. Merlin and Arthur were the ones who had stucco that over.

“You berk, it's serious here,” Gwaine says in a loud and lilting tone that makes Arthur suspect he's bona fide sniffling, or cackling, one or the other. “The flat's flooded. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.”

Arthur grunts. If Gwaine says that, it's bad. “Don't tell me.”

But Gwaine does tell him. “The floor collapsed.”

“Meaning?” Arthur asks, since this doesn't quite compute. How does that even happen?

“There's a hole in the floor--” The line crackles. “Hello, Mrs Dochraid,” Gwaine says, changing tack so abruptly, it gives Arthur mental backlash.

Arthur puts down his fork. “You still talking to me?”

“Yeah, no, yeah. I mean I was just saying hi to kind Mrs Dochraid downstairs,” Gwaine says, then in a conspiratorial whisper he adds, “Before she murders me for having soaked a hole into her roof that's half the room wide. I can see her living room, Arthur, and she's got two pictures above the mantelpiece, one's of the Queen – and she's smirking – and the other of Simon Cowell. I didn't want to know that about my neighbours... Do you think she masturbates to him? Or to the Queen. Which is worse, do you reckon?”

“Gwaine,” Arthur stops him, before Gwaine can run off on a tangent.

Gwaine does come to the point, more or less. “I don't think the flat's fit for use anymore.”

Arthur blinks, wonders for a moment how that's possible outside of an animation reel starring Will E. Coyote, and says, “The fuck, Gwaine! No floor does that because of a leak.”

“Yeah, I know,” Gwaine says. “I mean the landlord is to blame for sure”

“When are they going to fix the place for you?”

“That's the problem,” Gwaine says, “I spoke with the landlord and he says it's my fault. I told him it's his because he should have made the building secure way before this happened and that this flat is a safety hazard. He didn't agree though, so we'll have to settle the matter through our lawyers.”

Guessing at the reason behind Gwaine's call, Arthur says, “I can give you my father's lawyer number.”

“Thanks, mate, but that's not the most pressing problem right now.” There's an alarming background concerto as of china crashing. “Thank you for catching that, Mrs Dochraid,” Gwaine yells, most definitely not to Arthur. Back to him, he says, “No, my problem is getting a roof over our heads till this legal disaster is sorted out. I phoned Ellie before I rang you--”

Knowing that it's too late for him to eat then and get to work on time, Arthur walks to the fridge and stores the plate in there. “And she said she won't have you because you're a lecherous bastard?”

“No, actually she said I can sleep on her couch.”

Arthur smiles as he contemplates Elena and Gwaine's antics. “Good then, problem solved.”

“Yeah, but no,” Gwaine says. “You're forgetting a certain someone, someone you spend a considerable amount of time with?”

“Merlin will indeed kill you,” Arthur says, the smile he was wearing from before expanding and going from ear to ear. “Considering he warned you off the bloody sink.”

“Yeah, true, dead man walking here,” Gwaine says, “but that's not the point, is it? The point is Merlin has nowhere to go, I don't think. Not with me taking Ellie's couch.”

“You selfish dick,” Arthur says, shaking his head.

“Oi, this is my continued survival we're talking about here,” Gwaine says. Then, in the same tone of a used car salesman, he adds, “So I was thinking, Merlin would be much less prone to killing me if I told him that though I sort of wrecked our flat, I've found a place for him to crash at.”

With that last word, Arthur realises where Gwaine's going. “Gwaine, no.”

“Oh come on, Arthur,” Gwaine says. “You may bicker like an old married couple but you love the guy.”

“Gwaine,” Arthur says, his heart giving his ribcage one hefty kick. “I just can't.” His brain goes into a deep freeze at the thought of having Merlin living with him, ambling around his place in his socks and over-large jogging bottoms that keep, for some unfathomable reason given that they're the correct size, hanging off his slim, pointy hips. No words come to Arthur, until he realises how bad his refusal sounds. “The couch's too small for Merlin. The beanpole's tall though he weighs a hectogram. I can't think he'd be very comfortable.”

“Oh come on, Arthur,” Gwaine says, “I'm sure he'd be far happier to sleep on your small couch than to shell out for a hotel. I'd give him the money for a few nights at the one round the corner, but I'm broke, he's broke, and you know...”

Arthur knows very well. “Yeah,” he says, voice low. “But-”

“Just don't come up with shitty excuses is what I'm saying,” Gwaine says, coming on more aggressively now. “Unless--” There's a pause and it's loaded, as if Gwaine is sorting out the meaning of life or finding the truth hidden behind such concepts as time and space. “Shit, mate, look, you should tell him, don't you think?”

Arthur leans against the fridge, eyes to the ceiling. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I'm talking about you having always been mad about the boy.”

Arthur chuckles but closes his eyes. “Far off the mark.”

“Look, I've always known you kind of had a thing for him,” Gwaine says, voice decreasing in pitch, becoming less boisterous, and, God forbid it, more intimate. “I thought it was small beans, but if it's as huge as that, I think you'd be an idiot not to tell him.”

Arthur expels a whoosh of air, opens his eyes, makes himself walk over to the kitchen island, where he left his briefcase, and starts packing in the reports verification files he worked on late into the night. “There's nothing to tell.”

“Bullshit,” Gwaine says, like a clap of thunder. “I don't even know why you're acting the way you are instead of jumping up and down at the idea of having him on your turf, and frankly I'd rather leave you to sort this shit out for yourself, but I'd like to know whether I have to tell Merlin he's to live on the streets because his best mate, the man he looks up to like no other, turned him out.”

“Aren't you forgetting the flatmate who demolished his flat?” Arthur asks, because Gwaine laid it on thick just then. “Isn't he responsible for poor Merlin's homelessness?”

“Demolishing is a big word,” Gwaine says. “And the question stands.”

Arthur closes his briefcase. “Of course, he can stay with me. I'll be home by eight. He can turn up at any time after that.”

“I'll tell him,” Gwaine says. Static disturbs the line. “Oh, shit, shit, shit. Got to go, mate, but I'll get a hold of Merlin and tell him he can shack up with you.”

Without a goodbye, Gwaine hangs up.

Arthur stares at the handset and sighs. He guesses today is going to be a long day.

 

****

2

 

It's only when Elyan knocks on his door that Arthur looks up from his computer screen. “Arthur,” he says, hand still forming a loose fist hanging in mid air, “are you still working?”

Because of the flicker of the screen, Arthur blinks. “Yeah, I was checking Marketing's accounts.” The numbers glare at him from the bottom of the page. “Those guys are spending way too much on adverts.”

“It's just that it's past eight and the security guard downstairs asked if anybody was still in,” Elyan says. “I offered to come up and check because I had a feeling it was you.”

Arthur squints at his monitor's sidebar; the numbers 8:52 shine from the corner. “Right, yeah, you're right. I'll, uh, be saving this and be gone.”

“Arthur?” Elyan asks, in that tactful voice of his that still manages to be probing, “are you all right?”

Eyes on the screen, Arthur clicks save before closing the document. “Yeah, fine, fine,” he says, pushing his chair back and standing.

“It's just that you look a little bit lost in your own world.”

Before he starts packing his things up, Arthur scratches at his temple. “No, I'm okay, not lost at all.”

“If you say so,” Elyan says, before pushing off the door he was leaning against.

Arthur snaps his briefcase shut. “Yeah, I do.”

“See you tomorrow then.”

Arthur watches Elyan go. Once he's alone he turns around, stares at the blinking neons of the city. With the lights of his office turned out, their glimmer illumines the room in flashing intervals of orange glows. Arthur picks up his coat and goes.

By the time he gets home, it's nearly ten. He finds Merlin sitting on the landing, two pizza boxes lying next to him on the floor, together with a bulging gym bag and a rucksack. When he sees Arthur, Merlin looks up, his fringe in messy strings, his eyes transcendently blue. He starts upright. “If you didn't want me here,” he says in a level voice, “you could have said.”

Arthur's stomach bottoms out and his heart brutally twists in his chest. “Merlin, no.”

“Come on,” Merlin says, with a lopsided smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes, threaded as it is with a filigree of bitterness. “It wasn't that subtle a message. You're two hours late.”

“I got--” Arthur bites down on his words, not wanting to be anything less than sincere with Merlin, at least in the small things. “Tell me you didn't get anchovies on my pizza?” he says instead.

“Arthur,” Merlin says again, his name laced with a sigh. “Gwaine probably twisted your arm into putting me up, because he was feeling guilty. But you don't have to. I can ask around.”

“Don't be an idiot, Merlin,” Arthur says, pushing past Merlin to open the door. “You're welcome here.”

“I can try and check with Gilli,” Merlin says, turning but not advancing. “Maybe he can find me a nook at his.”

Door eased open, Arthur grabs Merlin by the neck and shoves him forward. “Just get inside, Merlin, will you.”

“My stuff,” Merlin yelps. “Can't leave it there. People might trip into my pizza and fall down the stairs.”

“What a sweet end,” Arthur says, lobbing his keys at the bowl, before darting back out again to get Merlin's things. He leaves the cold pizza boxes on the hall dresser before putting Merlin's bags in the cupboard.

Watching him move around the room, Merlin stands there a little listlessly, arms hanging by his sides. “Are you sure you don't want me out of your hair?” he asks, pointing backwards, at the door that just now clicked shut.

Arthur breathes out. Despite his Freudian lateness, the last thing he wants is for Merlin to feel as though he's been kicked to the kerb, unwanted. Merlin doesn't deserve that. He lets himself say, “Positive, Merlin.”

Merlin beams at him then, with the full concentrated power of his baby blues and the full wattage of his toothy smile. He rubs his hands together. “Since the pizza's gone cold, I'll cook for you.”

Briefly, Arthur entertains the thought of asking Merlin not to, but he's a prisoner to Merlin's look of utter joy. It does bone-melting things to his pulse that deprive him of the ability to take away from Merlin's enjoyment. His shoulders go down. “Just don't make a mess of my kitchen,” he warns.

“No, my lord,” Merlin says, winking, before rolling his sleeves up and poking his head into Arthur's fridge. “Ew,” he then says. “There's congealed eggs in there.”

“That's Gwaine's fault,” Arthur says, with a quick burst of laughter.

Before continuing rummaging inside the fridge, Merlin briefly turns his head towards him. “It's always Gwaine's fault.”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, eyes boring into Merlin's, finding the same source of amusement in the antics of their friend, together with a well of other things he can't quite name but that ease his insides into a sense of rightfulness. “That's true.”

“Like a new law of physics,” Merlin says. “An inalterable fact.”

“Yeah--”

“Like a--”

“Dinner, Merlin,” Arthur reminds him, trying to conjure the put upon sternness he used to summon so easily in his early dealings with Merlin.

“Right-o, captain.”

Arthur hides his smile by cupping his mouth.

For a while Merlin busies himself at the range, while Arthur hooks up his laptop and does some extra work before stopping for the night. As he taps away at his keyboard, synchronising his computer with his phone, Merlin potters in the kitchen, fiddling with this and that utensil, which he gawps at as though he doesn't quite know what it does and where it goes. Arthur smirks at this proof of Merlin's incompetence when it comes to gadgetry, but all the while a warm feeling fills his middle, spreading heat up his chest and throat.

He's so intent on absorbing these sensations that at first the smell pervading his flat barely registers. But when it truly does, he wrinkles his nose. It doesn't take a genius to know what the source is, Merlin's concoctions. After all, he should have known. Years of parties with Merlin as host, his guests flushing their food down the toilet or surreptitiously throwing it into the rubbish, are proof enough of his lack of culinary skills. If that by any chance wasn't, then their holiday in Greece would be. Of the four of them – Gwaine, Perce, Arthur and Merlin – it was only Merlin who ever tried to cook and not live on takeaway. Pity that his dishes – his Moussaka most especially – tasted all of the same thing, detergent.

This time it smells as though it might even be worst than that, but Merlin is actually smiling at the oven, so Arthur, atypically admittedly, postpones saying anything.

He does some more of that as Merlin lays the table, whistling while he's at it. He's whistling the notes of 'Happy', so Arthur can't quite tell him he'd rather go for the pizza that lies congealing on the hall dresser. “Arthur,” Merlin tells him, I think it's ready.”

Arthur walks over to the table. A veggie stew covered in melted cheese sits in an pyrex dish in the corner. A plateful of bruschettas has taken centre stage behind an old wine bottle. There are five of them. On each one a pesto oval has been painted. Cherry tomatoes sit on either side of the bread. An arc of clotted cream curves inward at the bottom. “You've made smilies,” Arthur says, not quite believing his ears. “Bruschetta smilies.”

Merlin tilts his head to the side. “Too silly?” he asks, wrinkling his nose.

“Nah,” Arthur says, his core melting, bones and insides, “just proof that you're a bit too soft.”

“In that case, that's nothing new, is it?” Merlin says, dimpling up. “You always say that. No points lost.”

They both take a seat. Merlin passes him the veggies and Arthur ladles a moderate spoonful onto his plate. He hands the pyrex dish back to Merlin, who serves himself. Under Merlin's expectant eyes, Arthur lifts his fork and takes a bite. He chews. The taste – both acidic and cloyingly sweet – sucker punches his taste buds to the point Arthur nearly wants to gag. So as to avoid doing that, Arthur swallows, and then downs a full glassful of Pinot.

“So do you like it?” Merlin asks, shoving a spoonful of the stuff that nearly set Arthur puking into his mouth and happily munching. “Perhaps I went a bit overboard with the paprika.”

Arthur wishes it was just that. However, telling himself that Merlin's taste buds were neutered early on in life by spending too long summers with his uncle Gaius, he of the fodder gruel, Arthur refrains from complaining, the more so since he already owes Merlin for leaving him waiting on the landing for hours. “It's great,” Arthur says in a voice that comes out hoarse, “maybe needs a tad of salt...”

It's not as if salt can improve this recipe, Arthur doesn't think, but he can't exactly say that. Sprinkling of salt added, Arthur tucks back in. So as not to concentrate on the vile taste, he makes conversation. Since his ruminations have brought the man to mind, Arthur asks,“Have you heard from your uncle recently?”

“Yeah,” Merlin says, spearing these tiny veggie scraps that are the only morsels left in his plate. “Last week. He's fine, doing quite well, though he doesn't enjoy being retired. He invited me over this summer.” After a pause, Merlin continues, “You know, I've been missing his brekkie gruel lately.”

Arthur spits out some of his dinner.

“Something wrong?” Merlin asks, voice deepening with alarm, forehead wrinkling in concern.

“Wrong pipe,” Arthur says, pounding his chest with his fist.

“Here,” Merlin says, scrambling for a glassful he hands Arthur. “Have some water.”

In spite of that misadventure, dinner goes on peacefully enough. Arthur makes a point of clearing his plate down to the last crumb and keeping up the chatter, though he at times disseminates it with jokes at Merlin's expense. Merlin takes them in stride, merely rolling his eyes at them. He also does his share of ribbing, his arsenal quite large. At one point, after having ignored the latest of Arthur's jabs, he asks, “So how's the job going?”

“Auditing's not that exciting, Merlin,” Arthur says, swirling the wine in his glass.

Merlin inclines his head in half-hearted acknowledgement, frowns, then smiles vibrantly again, “Come on, you're the one who gets to flush out all inappropriate expenses and all that... It's trippy.”

Arthur huffs a laugh. “You make it sound so much more interesting than it is.”

“Do I?”

Arthur lifts his shoulders, puts his glass down and traces the rim. “Yeah, my duties keep me mostly tied to my desk. The staff development sessions are what I like best. I get to interact with the young ones.” He waggles his eyebrows.

Merlin chuckles. “If your job's not challenging enough why don't you switch?”

Arthur's neck muscles give out a jab of pain. “We can't all gallivant around the country organising fun events, can we?”

“Doing that is not all it's cracked up to be either,” says Merlin, stretching in his seat. “Sometimes you just want to stay put for a while.”

“So when's the next event?”

“Two weeks,” Merlin says, yawning. “Trip Hop music festival up north. Some of the bands were featured on Pitchfork.”

“See,” Arthur says, lifting his glass and tipping it towards Merlin. “Lots of people would say that your job is hip.”

“That's just something Vivian Lord would say, and you know it,” Merlin says, placing his chin in his hands, eyes going smaller with the heaviness of sleep. “You don't like what I do, and we both know it.”

“I never said that,” Arthur says, because he hasn't, not in so many words.

“You did say,” Merlin points out in a mess of a slur, “that it wasn't a grown up job, that my income was too variable, and that it makes my life too unsettled.”

Arthur lets Merlin believe that those are his real objections to his job. “We can't all wander around, Merlin,” Arthur says, ending that conversation with a tired decrease of decibels, before he starts clearing the table.

When everything is back in place, dirty dishes in the dishwasher, leftovers in the fridge, they camp on the sofa for some telly watching. After some initial protests involving wanting to tune in for Fake Reaction, a programme Arthur loathes, Merlin grows progressively quieter, until with a sniffle and head tilt he lists against Arthur, his nose buried in his shoulder, his mouth open. He's drooling, but Arthur doesn't bat him away. He just switches channels and watches shows on mute so as to avoid waking him.

When it becomes clear Merlin's not rousing any time soon, Arthur wriggles out from under him and lets him sprawl length-wise on the couch. Before Merlin became a complete dead weight, he'd meant to bust fresh linen out of the cupboard and make of the sofa as much of a bed as he could. As it is, short of wrestling a sleeping Merlin, he can't do that. He opts for covering him with his spare duvet.

Before switching off the lights in the living room, Arthur ruffles Merlin's hair.

A hand under his head, fingers laxly curled inwards, Merlin smacks his lips and turns on his side,.

For a brief spell, Arthur feels like a man standing on ice that's about to crack. But then Merlin settles without waking and Arthur relaxes.

He pads into his bedroom. 

 

****

3)

 

When Arthur walks into the kitchen the next morning it's to find Merlin is sitting on the worktop next to the range, dangling his legs and talking on his mobile.

The moment he sees Arthur, Merlin dimples, though he continues discussing venue choice and catering permits with whoever he's on the phone with. As he goes on, citing all the licenses he has already obtained, he pats the spot next to him.

Through the fogs of sleep, Arthur slumps next to him. “Morning,” he mimes.

Merlin does the same before passing him his mug. Its aroma tickles Arthur's nostrils and makes his brain engage.

As Merlin finishes his conversation, Arthur takes slow sips of his coffee. As he does, he starts to take in more details, ones that only registered fuzzily before. Merlin has changed from yesterday; of course he has. He's now wearing light-wash jeans and a white tee, but he has neither shoes nor socks on.

At the sight of Merlin's bare feet Arthur feels a knot of electricity twist at the mouth of his stomach. The arch of them and the finely angular shape of his ankle catch his fancy and set his insides spinning with a pleasant jolt of adrenaline. It's not as if Arthur has a foot fetish or as if Merlin's feet are particularly amazing. They're bloody feet, big but otherwise unremarkable, for god's sake. Still, Arthur needs to shift his attention elsewhere so as to shake off the ball of energy that fills him and makes him want to reach out and touch. Which he can't do, because Merlin is a friend, of course, and doesn't know what's going on with Arthur, not in the least.

Not touching, though, is hard. Merlin smells like pine – courtesy of Arthur's shower gel -- and his hair shines wetly in the kitchen neons. If Arthur squints, he can still see the droplets clinging to separate strands of hair.

He can also imagine how cool his skin would be under Arthur's lips.

Shit. Arthur backs away, but does it too late because Merlin hangs up and turns the full wattage of his attention on him, overwhelming him with his dancing eyes and an impertinently sweet early morning grin. “Did I wake you?” he asks, concerned but without losing the happy lilt to his voice. “I was talking too loudly, wasn't I?” 

“No,” Arthur says, denial swift on his lips. “I have a nine to five job, Merlin. I generally get up round about this time.”

“Oh,” Merlin says, “thank God. I was worrying I'd woken you and that you'd have to go to work on too little sleep and feeling all grumpy.”

“I'm never grumpy.”

Merlin jumps off the work-top. “I beg to differ. I have plenty proof.”

“I would like you to cite it,” Arthur says, though he's really not expecting Merlin to. It's just that he's the victim of a Pavlov reflex when it comes to trading barbs with Merlin. He invariably ends up opening his mouth and putting his foot in it. “Because if you don't, it'll sound as though you're lying.”

“Your reaction every time I've phoned you on a Sunday morning more than proves it,” Merlin says, whirling round to grab a bowl and shoving it at Arthur.

“The weekend, Merlin,” Arthur says, doing a good imitation of sounding put-upon, though he isn't, not in the slightest. “The weekend is sacred.” This great truth specified, Arthur looks down to be greeted by the sight of a brownish, unappeling mound of dry-looking twiglets. “What's in this bowl?”

“Muesli,” Merlin says, his shoulders going up to his ears.

“But where are my eggs?”

Merlin pats Arthur's belly. “Too many eggs aren't good for you.”

“Are you implying I'm fat?” Arthur says, sucking his stomach in almost instinctively, partly because he doesn't want Merlin to think he isn't fit and partly because he wants to milk the moment for all it is worth. “I'm very fit.”

“I just want you to be healthy,” Merlin says, giving him a swift hug that comes out of nowhere and that leaves Arthur wanting to cling, though he can't quite because Merlin is soon flitting somewhere else. “That's important.”

“I try and hit the gym once a--” Arthur starts to say, but then Merlin's phone goes off and Merlin has to answer his text.

When he's finished, he says, “That was Gwaine. He says he phoned your lawyer and that he got an appointment for the day after tomorrow. Since I don't trust him with the legalese one bit, I just wrote him to say I'm going too.”

“But you don't get legal speak either,” Arthur points out.

“Well, I do manage to sign contracts for venue hires every now and then,” Merlin says, rolling his eyes. “And no major catastrophe has ever ensued.”

“Yes, but not like this,” Arthur says, arching an eyebrow. He doesn't trust Merlin with that kind of stuff. He may be good at his job, but the intricacies of tenancy contracts are quite different. “I'm coming too.”

“Arthur,” Merlin says, with a rattled sigh, “that's very kind of you, but I already owe you something like ten thousand pizzas for putting me up, I can't really ask you to come to the lawyer's with me as well.”

“Nonsense,” Arthur says, briskly, his skin prickling under Merlin's scrutiny. “Without my expertise, you'd be lost.”

“Hardly,” Merlin says, while Arthur, muesli rejected, retreats to the bathroom. “I'm a sly fox, I am. A true Metternich. A natural consigliori.”

“Ah,” Arthur says, from inside the bathroom, “and I'm Solomon and Tom Hagen all rolled into one.”

“Dollophead,” Merlin yells after him.

Arthur opens the shower tap and shouts, “Can't hear you!”

Merlin's laughter punctuates the initial moments of Arthur's shower. It's not a bad accompaniment to the beginning of his day.

At the office Wednesday and Thursday pass normally by. At home it's a bit different. Since Merlin's not working till the next week but one, he spends most of his time at Arthur's, remotely organising music event stuff and otherwise camping on his sofa.

This means that it's to him Arthur returns every night. It's his mobile tunes that he wakes up to and it's his laptop film collection that Arthur watches at night, sprawled on the sofa next to Merlin, his leg warm and solid next to Arthur's, his elbow digging into Arthur's side. Arthur is quite unable to complain about that. Mostly because it feels so right, as though Merlin belongs, that Arthur is willing to put up with some little jabbing on the part of Merlin's wayward limbs just so he can experience more of that rightness.

Two days go by in the blink of an eye, no matter that Arthur's got so much to do at work he's up to the gills in paperwork. Though normally he'd wade through his days like a zombie, counting the hours till Friday kicks in, this week he doesn't. Instead he is quite late for Merlin's appointment with the lawyer, time flown by in a blur of distracted thoughts and sweeping feelings.

“Sorry,” he says to Merlin and Gwaine, whom he finds seated on the lawyer's anteroom sofa. “I cut it a bit close with work.”

“That's okay, Arthur,” Merlin says, standing up to clap him on the forearm in welcome. “I know how busy you are.”

“And here I thought you had found some piece of hot totty on the way here and stood us up,” Gwaine says, trying to chase Arthur into a hug Arthur doesn't particularly want to share and therefore ducks out of, prompting a little awkward ballet of sorts.

“Idiot, let go,” Arthur says, when the lawyer's secretary eyes them archly and says, all business, “Mr Lord will see you now.”

The room they're ushered into is luminous but darkened by heavy mahogany furniture. A plant stands by the window, trying to lend the space some cheerfulness by lusciously spreading its leaves both upwards and outwards. Mr Lord, more grizzled than the last time Arthur saw him, starts from behind his desk when he sees them. He shakes Gwaine and Merlin's hands first. Arthur comes last, though he gets the longest greeting. “Arthur,” he says. “It's been a long time since I last saw you. If I remember correctly you were still growing then.”

Arthur clears his throat. “I was in university, then, sir.”

“Yes, yes,” Mr Lord says. “I remember you dating my Viv too. So of course you'd be the same age as her.”

Arthur shifts his weight. “Vivian and I were only ever friends, sir.”

“Yeah,” Gwaine says, clapping him on the back, “Arthur here is as gay as the rainbow.”

“Oh,” Mr Lord says. “I didn't know that... I apologise for assuming...”

“I never mentioned that specifically,” Arthur says, “but I never hid it.”

“Oh, no, no,” Mr Lord says, lifting his hands and showing them his palms. “I wasn't thinking you were or that I have any right to that knowledge based on our old acquaintance--”

Merlin comes to the rescue. “Arthur thinks worlds of that acquaintance and says that you're a brilliant lawyer.”

Arthur sends Merlin a grateful smile.

Flattening his tie against his chest, Mr Lord sits back down. They take their cue from him, appropriating a chair each. When they're all settled, Mr Lord starts cleaning his glasses lenses with a glaringly white, monogrammed handkerchief. “Arthur mailed me the specifics of the case,” he says as an opener.

“So what is your opinion, sir?” Merlin asks, leaning forward in his seat. “What do you think we can do to get Mr King to pay for out flat repairs?”

Mr Lord nods his head. “Well, the law states that repairs to the property’s structure and exterior as well as basins, sinks, baths and other sanitary fittings including pipes and drains fall within the landlord's responsibilities.”

“So I was right,” says Gwaine banging his hand on Lord's desk.

“This means there's hope for a quick resolution,” Merlin asks almost at the same time.

Arthur's stomach, for some reason, sinks.

“Not quite,” Mr Lord says, putting on his now pristine glasses. “The law also states that tenants damaging other tenants' flats, as in the present case, are responsible for the repairs needed as a result of their actions. This specification seems to illustrate your case as well.”

“Oh,” Merlin says, shoulders drooping.

“But it can't work like that,” Gwaine says with some vehemence. “I did cause some damage, but I'm sure the extent of it wouldn't have been so catastrophic if the flat was up to scratch.”

“I'm afraid,” Mr Lord tells them, “that while it is true that you can make your landlord take action if the property is a health and safety hazard, you'd still have to prove that was the case, and that the damage you did cause was only consequential and dependent on his failure to respect the current regulations as regards those issues.”

Arthur, Gwaine and Merlin all share a look. Merlin bows his head, Gwaine starts insisting his and Merlin's landlord can't be in the right, while Arthur gets hit with the full import of what Mr Lord just said and what exactly it means for him.

Because what it all boils down to is that – minus the bouncing around due to his job – Merlin is going to stay with him quite a long time, at least if bureaucracy keeps going at the sluggish pace it always has been known for. It ought to be a daunting prospect. In more ways than one this is going to impact both his life-style and behaviour. Yet right in that moment, Arthur can't seem to care. When Gwaine called, he was quick to panic, now he can't even summon the wherewithal to. He's just basking in what he has as a consequence of this strange turn of events. So instead of worrying, he starts making plans for his home that involve Merlin. He's so deep in those, he almost doesn't hear Mr Lord say, “I'll contact your landlord, and keep you updated, of course, but I don't expect him to agree to pay.”

“So, it'll end up in court,” Merlin asks, lips pursed.

Mr Lord escorts Gwaine and Merlin to the door. “Depending on the amount of the expenditure involved, it could go to the small claims court, yes.”

“And then?” Gwaine asks, frowning as he always does when facing an unfamiliar concept.

“Well, Mr Lord says, “if Mr King denies owing you the money, you may have to go to a court hearing.”

“And that involves legal fees,” Merlin says, worrying his lower lip.

Arthur stands and looks down.

Mr Lord says, “Oh, Arthur and I--”

As though his chest is fully congested, Arthur makes a slow gargling noise.

“Are old friends,” Mr Lord says, “so you owe me nothing for this little spot of legal representation I'm doing on your behalf.”

“Oh, thanks,” says Gwaine, shaking Lord's hand. “That's... that's really great of you, sir.”

Merlin catches Arthur's eyes from across the room.

Arthur busies himself tightening the knot of his tie, before following the group to the doorway.

Ushering them back into the ante-room, Lord says, “I'll contact Mr King's lawyer and keep you posted then.”

With a fresh round of handshakes, they part from the lawyer and are seen out by Lord's secretary. Outside the building Gwaine says, “Well, that was a mixed bag of good news and bad news.”

Merlin hums softly under his breath. “I... I suppose it could have been much worse,” he says, spearing Arthur with an inquisitive stare.

“Why don't we have a drink at that pub down there,” Arthur blurts out, completely a propos nothing, he's aware.

Thankfully, Gwaine being Gwaine, he takes him up on it, saying, “Yeah, let's go drown our homelessness in alcohol."

Before following Gwaine down the road, Merlin gives Arthur one last look. Arthur sets off after the duo, hoping he's not making a bigger mess of things than even Gwaine had predicted.

 

****

4

 

As Gwaine walks to the bar to get their drinks, Merlin turns to him and says, “You're paying for the lawyer, aren't you?”

Arthur picks up the greased stained menu. “I don't know what you're talking about, Merlin.”

“Put that thing down,” Merlin tells him, lowering the menu. “I know you hate onion rings.”

“I don't hate onion rings,” Arthur says, making himself sound as petulant as he can. “I just hate how your breath smells after you've eaten them.”

“Yeah,” Merlin says, “total passion killer, but that's not what we're talking about, is it?”

Arthur's face heats with Merlin's words. His mind goes there the moment Merlin says 'passion' and he finds that he's attempting to guess at Merlin's orgasm face while Merlin tries to make a point and goes on and on about it. “Uh?” Arthur says, when Merlin snaps his fingers before his face.

“I said,” Merlin says, shaking his head, “that your deflecting manoeuvre isn't working. I know you're just pretending to be all inattentive and stuff, just as I know you're the one who paid Lord's fee.”

Arthur passes a hand through his hair, forward to back. “I truly--”

“Look,” Merlin says, putting a hand on his wrist. “I'll repay you. Somehow I will. I'll cover Gwaine's part of the expenses as well. But the truth is that I can't right now.”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, trying not to focus on Merlin's touch – how soft it is, how warmth is transferring from the tips of his fingers to Arthur's skin, “I don't need the money. At the end of the day my boring job pays well.”

“Yeah, doesn't mean your earnings should go to me and that scapegrace,” Merlin says, cocking his head at the bar, where Gwaine is flirting with the girl behind the counter. “I'll repay you.” he nods to himself. “But you'll have to wait a few weeks. Until then you must let me do something nice for you.”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, exhaling hard. “You've cooked three days out of three. I think you're doing enough.”

“Oh, no,” Merlin says. “I don't mean that. I mean I have a few connections, a bit of pull when it comes to gigs and venues, so I was thinking of something along the lines of a night of clubbing, a concert, something a bit more special.”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, holding his palm up, “you really don't need to do that. I was happy to help with Lord.”

“And I'll be happy to organise a special night out for you.”

“What's this talk of a night out?” Gwaine asks, dumping the tray with their beers and nachos on the table.

“Merlin here wants to take me on a night out.”

“Brilliant,” Gwaine says, handing them their drinks and then plopping down. “When is this?”

“Er, I don't know yet,” Merlin says, going bug-eyed. “I--”

“Oh, I see, you still need to get in touch with your music pals,” Gwaine says, taking a hefty swig of bitter. “It's okay, I'm still interested.”

“Gwaine,” Merlin says, arching his eyebrows. “I don't think--”

“Oh,” Gwaine says, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “You're right. I should ask Ellie as well as a thank you for having me...”

Merlin ducks his head. “Right, of course, you and Ellie are coming.”

Gwaine whips out his mobile. “Texting her right now.”

“And here I was,” Arthur says, “trying to tell Merlin that he didn't need to go to that length to say thank you.”

“Oh no,” Gwaine says, patting Merlin's shoulder. “Merlin's right. We'll have fun. Ellie will think I'm great for taking her. What's not to like? He should definitely get his arse in gear and get his contacts to organise this.”

Arthur sighs.

Merlin shakes his head, but laughs. “At least this means you're coming, right?” he asks Arthur. “You're not leaving me alone with Gwaine in Lothario mode?”

“No.” Arthur's smile waxes. “You know I'm not.”

“In that case,” Merlin says, standing and slipping his mobile out of his jeans pocket, “I'll go outside and make some calls.”

As he drinks his beer, Arthur watches Merlin weave through the crowd and thinks that going to a gig with him isn't going to be so bad after all.

 

*****

 

5

 

Merlin is friends with a bloke who manages a New Zealand band currently playing at the Notting Hill Arts Club. So he easily gets them four free tickets for the group's last appearance at the venue.

Although the band isn't famous yet, the place is packed. The club consists of two rooms hewn out of a cement basement. One has a bar and some booths to sit in. The other exhibits very essential décor, complete with exposed pipes and less than pristine couches that look like relics of the 60s. To move from one room to the other you have to step over crushed glass evidently originating from broken bottles. Oddly shaped ceiling lamps give off red light that bathes the audience and the the bare, graffiti-spattered wall behind the stage in its glow. Though the stage itself is small, the band is pumped and so is the public, swaying to the rhythm of a song Arthur thinks actually too mellow to actually have any beat. But it's all right because, going by the way he's jumping up and down, Merlin likes it.

Over the notes of one of the songs, Elena yells, “I'm going to get something to drink.”

Grabbing her by the hip, Gwaine says, “I'll escort you.”

“Get something for me too,” Merlin tells them as they worm their way through the press of bodies that bars their access to the other room. “Something fruity.”

“Will do,” Gwaine shouts back without turning.

Once they're alone again, Merlin sidles up to Arthur and says, “So are you having the littlest bit of fun?”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, clapping when the song ends. “It's a nice band.”

“I know they don't exactly play your kind of music,” Merlin tells him, whispering in his ear, even though the band are on a break between sessions and there's no special need to make onself heard that way. “But of the options I had it was really the best. And they serve great drinks here.”

“I really liked the third song,” Arthur says. Putting a positive spin to the outing comes easy to him since Merlin's smiling so very widely. “It had a nice....”

“Oh my God, tell me I didn't coerce you into doing something you don't like,” Merlin says, cupping his mouth with the flat of his hand like a child trying to keep a secret would. “I was hoping you'd enjoy yourself.”

“I am enjoying myself,” Arthur says, and though he knows Merlin suspects him of lying he isn't at all. “Honest.”

But Merlin is not convinced at all and when Gwaine comes back with their drinks, Merlin chugs down his Fuzzy Navel, as if he by its means he can drown his sorrow at his failure to find Arthur a band he enjoys.

“Wow,” Gwaine says, clearly admiring Merlin's power to put drinks down. “That was brilliant. Do you want another?”

“Gwaine,” Arthur says, trying to get Gwaine understand that it would be better if Merlin, a notorious lightweight, didn't get too many.

Gwaine, though, likes to see his friends merry, even if that means drunk off their arse, so he goes and supplies Merlin with two extra Fuzzy Navels.

By the third one, Merlin says, “Do you know why Fuzzy Navels are called Fuzzy Navels?”

“No, I haven't the faintest,” Arthur says, grabbing the swaying Merlin and orientating his body so he can still watch the action on the stage.

“It's because peaches are fuzzy,” Merlin says, leaning in, his nose buried in the side of Arthur's face. “Like your cheek. Did you forget to shave, Aaaarthur?”

Okay, Merlin was arsed. “No,” Arthur says, wrapping an arm around Merlin to hold him up, the line of warmth that he is fanning the want in his heart. “I did but it's late and--”

Like a big purring cat wanting to be petted, Merlin runs his mouth up the side of Arthur's face, his lips whispering across his skin and making Arthur's legs buckle. “That's scratchy sexy,” Merlin says. “Sexy first, scratchy second."

Gwaine sends Arthur a meaningful look. “Merlin's sozzled.”

Ellie goes a bit cross-eyed from the staring. “I don't think that's all he is,” she says, rather cryptically, if you ask Arthur.

Merlin meanwhile noses Arthur's jaw. He's not kissing him, Arthur doesn't think, but he's rubbing his face against Arthur's and Arthur wants to turn around and catch his lips. Yet he knows he can't and shouldn't do that, because Merlin's drunk and by that gesture he doesn't really mean anything besides showing affection.

“Merlin,” Arthur says, forcing his body into lock-down so he doesn't do what he craves to. “Why don't you listen to the music, mmm?”

For a while Merlin does; he concentrates of the performance until a soft, addled smile appears on his lips. Then he starts keeping the beat with his foot and miming the lyrics to the songs. Slurs them even. But though his eyes are turned to the stage, he's got Arthur in some kind of octopus embrace he doesn't relinquish. Not when it's time to  
clap and not when Gwaine tries to redirect him to the armchairs. “S' comfy here,” he says, burrowing against Arthur, one of his hands splayed over Arthur's belly. 

At this point Arthur is floating on a cloud of well being mixed with apprehension. He wishes he could get rid of the second sensation and just enjoy the moment for what it is, some friendly cuddling, but he can't help reminding himself that while right this instant he seemingly has everything he could possibly want, it's not real. Not the way Arthur needs it to be. In the spirit of Merlin's offering though, it's all very honest and lovely and Arthur wishes he could just let go and enjoy it.

Instead, he's on tenterhooks all night long, his throat a bit clogged the way it is when you've cried too much -- except that Arthur hasn't done that at all -- and his pulse all over the map. As he encircles his arms around Merlin, looping them behind his shoulders, Arthur's heart melts into a softness that's like some kind of gradual liquefaction.

Though he keeps his body taut and his expression more severe than it need be, he's gushing with feelings.

And it's not only his feelings that are bothering him. On a more base level, there's this physical sensation that has his body zinging with the consciousness of Merlin's closeness and that makes Arthur wish he really did have Merlin as more than a friend. Both feelings and urges end up merging into this ball of want that nearly drowns him breathless.

Because he doesn't know what to do with this sloshed, sweeter version of Merlin or with himself and his feelings, the night seems interminable.

Arthur spends the night watching Merlin float on that happy-go-lucky cloud of his. He watches him drunkenly totter from Ellie to Gwaine to the band members and make friends everywhere until at last the club empties. That's their cue to go.

“Are you sure you can walk him to yours?” Ellie asks. “He's a bit unmanageable like that.”

“Yeah, Merlin of the octopus limbs,” Gwaine says, giving Merlin a sonorous clap on the back.

“Arthur's good,” Merlin mumbles and Arthur's not sure whether that's a defence of his character and its integrity or whether Merlin means Arthur's good to get him home.

Either way Arthur's not prepared to let him down. “We're alright. We'll get a cab.”

Merlin makes an approving noise, which means that Arthur's got his vote.

“You sure you don't want our help?” Ellie asks, worried.

“You're telling me you want to negotiate him onto a bus?” Arthur cocks his head at the rather limp Merlin, whose arm is slumped across Arthur's shoulders and whose body is clinging to his with all the determination of the desperately drunk.

“No bus,” Merlin says, making his wishes clear though his words are not, his vocals and consonants are so jumbled. “I'm gonna go home with Arthur.”

“Yeah, mate, yeah, you are,” Gwaine tells him and then he starts to chortle like mad and it's Ellie who's got to rein him back in and tug him towards the nearest bus stop.

“Night, Merlin, night Arthur,” she shouts, as she tows Gwaine down the road.

Locating a cab at that hour doesn't prove easy and Merlin's not very collaborative, sighing and tripping Arthur up at every step because his legs don't quite function normally. At long last however they do chance upon one.

The drive isn't particularly long, mostly because there aren't many people around so late in the day -- or rather so early in the morning. But getting Merlin out of the cab proves more time consuming than most of the car journey was. However, in the end, Arthur succeeds in both paying their fare and extricating Merlin from the back of the vehicle.

Arthur, though, only breathes out in relief once they've managed both the entrance stairs and the lift. Once they are in his flat, Arthur contemplates his options as to where to deposit the by now half asleep Merlin. He thinks of letting Merlin sleep it off on the couch as he has so far. But Merlin's so pissed he might fall off it. So he opts for walking Merlin into his bedroom and securing him in the middle of his bed. Well, after he's got his shoes off him. Then, because he thinks it might be needed to restrain him, he builds a cushion fort either side of him.

Arthur's just finished fluffing the blanket either side of him when Merlin, eyes blood-injected and half closed, grabs him by the neck and tells him, “Sleep with me.”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, in a quiet voice dictated by the hour, “you're too sloshed to share. You'd kick me or just fall off the bed.”

Arthur's waiting for some vocal confirmation of his wisdom, even in the shape of a few more mumbled words, but he isn't rewarded with any. What he gets instead is Merlin pawing his face with unusual drunken gentleness and some sighing. Then Merlin buries his head in the pillow, smacks his lips together, and starts snoring.

Arthur goes back into the living room so he can sleep on the couch. 

 

****

 

6

 

Perceval passes the beers around.

“So why did you gather us all here?” Sefa asks, accepting her bottle.

“Hey, it's not as if we never throw party at ours!” Gwaine says in self-defence. “Well, Ellie at hers, and Merlin and me at ours.”

Merlin lifts his bottle at Gwaine in accusatory fashion. “Yeah, but we've never been sat on a sofa like ducks in a row to wait for some sort of momentous piece of news before. So what gives?”

As she glances at Gwaine, Ellie's lips curve upward.

Gwaine toasts her with his beer.

Elena takes a bow. “We asked you all here...”

“To,” Gwaine continues.

“See our friends and--” Elena winks at Gwaine.

“Tell you that Elena and I are an item now,” Gwaine says taking the baton up from her.

Throwing his head back, Merlin bursts out laughing. “We'd have realised the moment you started completing each other's sentences.” He nudges Arthur in the ribs. “Right, Arthur?”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, not quite getting how this happened given that initially Elena had to be begged to welcome Gwaine under her roof. “True.”

“What we want to know how it happened though,” Sefa said, cocking her head and leaning forward, clearly thirsting for more details.

“I don't think I really want to hear that story,” Arthur says, because if there's something he doesn't want to know about it's Gwaine's amorous prowess. “I mean, think about it.”

“Oh come on,” Sefa tells him, leaning across Merlin to stress her point. “I'm not afraid of some x-rated descriptions.”

“It's Gwaine,” Arthur says, gesticulating at said individual. “You should be very afraid. There was that time with the missing cucumbers.”

“Oh my God, Greece,” Merlin says, resting his head against the sofa and covering his eyes with his palm. “The weirdest holiday of my life.”

“Well, I'll tell you just to spite Arthur,” Gwaine says, sticking his tongue out at him.

“Do I have to stop my ears?” Merlin asks, leaning against Arthur, his chest shaking with chuckles whose reverberations Arthur can feel up his own side. “That's all I want to know.”

Gwaine fakes a glare. “No, you won't have 'cause it happened in the most proper and romancey way.”

“Only to begin with,” Elena says, pinching Gwaine's side. “I can assure you that it got really dirty pretty fast.”

Before sharing the secret behind their getting together, Gwaine leans over and presses a kiss onto Ellie's neck. Sucking noises dwindling, Gwaine straightens and says, “Proximity did it. By living under the same roof we realised that we were a little bit into each other.”

“And although Gwaine is a handful and a complete disaster and even broke my toaster,” Ellie says, casting the man an accusatory glance Arthur is sure is more for show than real, “he's a hot piece of A, with a capital 'a'.”

While the others laugh at Gwaine and Elena's antics, Arthur's ears start ringing as he experiences a wash of jealousy. It's not that he wishes Gwaine and Elena any unhappiness. He rather hopes they'll work out together, because, however odd they are taken singly, they make some kind of weird sense when paired together. It's just that for a moment he wishes their good luck could be his. It's petty and he's aware that what Gwaine and Elena have has nothing to do with luck, but he still wishes himself in their place. Or he does until he tamps down on that stupid reaction.

“Congratulations,” he says, once he's mastered his basest instincts, the ones he'd like to be always capable of rising above.

Taking up Arthur's cue, all the others offer their congratulations as well. Their impromptu gathering turns into a proper party when Sefa rings her friends to tell them to come over and Perce and Gwaine raid their mobile contacts list with much the same view.

Music plays and conversation takes place in little groups you can't quite infringe on without barging in on on-going discussions. Someone makes finger food, which travels round in mismatched plates and trays. Alcohol is passed around too, though considering what happened the last time, nobody gives Merlin any. New arrivals mingle with the pre-existing guests and the background buzz gets louder. Some of Gwaine and Elena's friends take to dancing to the music Merlin helpfully puts on, because he's the one who knows everything about the newest trends. Meanwhile Arthur gets stuck in conversation with Sefa's second cousin, a man whose name he doesn't catch, but whose interest in brass knobs turns out to be somewhat disturbing.

It's Elena who saves him from having to listen to an in-depth description of the best methods to polish knobs (the inadvertent mental pun makes Arthur nauseous), by poking her blonde, tousled head out of the kitchen and saying, “Arthur, there's a bottle I can't open, come here and lend a paw.”

With greater enthusiam than he should perhaps be showing, Arthur excuses himself away from Sefa's relative and enters the kitchen, where he finds not only Elena but also Gwaine. “Thank you for the save, guys.”

“That was coincidental,” Elena says, exchanging complicit glances with Gwaine.

“Yes, it was,” Gwaine agrees, shaking his mane as he nods.

“There's really no bottle to open,” Arthur deduces, because he can't see any trace of any such item on any available surface, “is there?”

“No, that was a ruse,” Elena says, bouncing off her feet. “See, what called you in here for a reason.” She nods to Gwaine.

Gwaine bobs his head. “Yes, we did.”

“May I then know the reason why?” Arthur says, sharp-eyed and not a little bit sarcastically.

“Because Merlin is leaving for the north tomorrow,” Elena says, as if that somehow pertains to this conversation.

“Yes, and?” Arthur's known this for a while; Elena and Gwaine know he's known this for a while so he doesn't really get the point of reiterating the news. “Merlin, though I sometimes accuse him of being lazy, does have a job he sometimes attends to.”

“Yes, that's the point,” Elena says, all round eyes and exclamatory emphasis.

“Exactly,” Gwaine chimes in, as if that makes sense to anyone but him and Elena.

Trying to suss his friends' meaning out, Arthur looks at this from different angles. “No, I don't follow.”

“He's leaving!” Elena says, fanning her hands about. “That's what matters.”

“He does every now and then,” Arthur says, still not getting the duo's drift.

“Yes, but that's a problem, isn't it?” Gwaine's brow lifts. “You don't like him going.”

Arthur blinks in confusion. “I have no problem with him having a job though.”

“Oh, that's not what Gwaine means at all,” Elena says, doing her version of clarifying, which only muddles things up further. “He's referring to the implications of his job.”

“Him earning his keep?” Arthur gives a wild stab at a guess.

“No, idiot,” Gwaine says, as though he's had enough of Arthur's inability to keep up with his reasoning. “I mean the fact that he's going to go and sleep around as he always does when he's on the job--”

“Oh,” Arthur says, tipping his head against his chest, which tightens rather unpleasantly at the reminder. “I see.”

“But the fact is,” Ellie says, losing some of her enthusiasm in favour of delicacy, “that we, Gwaine and me, that is, don't think he would if he knew how you lov--”

“If he knew you wanted to fuck him and other sweet shit,” Gwaine pre-empts her, earning himself a glare from both Ellie and Arthur. “Because, yeah, we were all there when he made that speech about travelling professionally and the inconvenience of having stable partners--”

Arthur makes a little noise in his throat. He doesn't think he needs to have the content of that speech repeated to him. They were all there, drunk as fuck on a New Year's eve some four years ago, and they had all listened to what Merlin had to say on the subject. Arthur thinks he's actually the least likely to have forgotten the minutiae of Merlin's love life tirade.

“But--” Ellie stomps on Gwaine's foot. “--we believe he only said that--”

“He isn't all talk,” Arthur says, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “I know he actually follows through. When he's not in town--”

“Yes, well, he is a bit free with his love.” Ellie rolls her eyes as she corrects herself. “Because he doesn't know how you feel for him.”

“Though it is,” Gwaine says, interrupting them both and nearly earning himself a punch in the face for his pains, “evident to everyone with eyes and an ounce of wit--”

“So he thinks it's okay if he keeps it up and it is too,” Elena says, continuing with even more animation than before. “But both Gwaine and I are sure that he loves you and would go for you if he thought he had a chance.”

Arthur experiences a bone breaking surge of hope, one that sends his heart beating twice as fast as it normally does and that colours his world in a rainbow of unbearable lightness. Yet, he stifles that hope, knowing that he can't indulge in such illusions. “You can't know that,” he says. “You don't know what he feels.”

“I really think I do though,” Ellie says, taking Arthur's hand in hers, her palm soft and warm. “It's really, really obvious.”

“Did he ever say?” Arthur asks, telling himself he shouldn't really hope because he already knows the answer to that question. “Did he ever say he was interested?”

“Not to us specifically,” Gwaine says, averting his face.

“Not in so many words at least,” Ellie says, squeezing his hand. “But he's always 'Arthur did this, Arthur did that'. He loves you.”

Arthur sighs and hangs his head. “Yeah, as a friend. I'm sure he does.”

Gwaine rakes his hand through his hair, about faces, stops and then turns around again. “Arthur, you've got to tell him before he goes and boinks someone else.”

“Or rather before he falls for one of those people he does...” Ellie goes goggle-eyed. “... have sex with.”

“I can't stop him from doing that,” Arthur says, not wanting to picture that scenario, Merlin happily in love with one of his casual partners. It's not that he doesn't want Merlin to have that joy; it's just that he's not as big of a man as to be able to contemplate that scenario without feeling his lungs shrink in his ribcage. “It's not my place.”

“You can give him the true facts,” Gwaine says, arching his eyebrow.

“Arthur, sometimes you've got to take a risk,” Elena says, letting go of his hand and stepping back. “Just take a leap of faith. If you want things to happen, that is.”

“I—“ Arthur wets his lips because they've become unspeakably dry. “I can't change the future. If he wants to have fun... It's up to him.”

“He's a stubborn bastard, ain't he?” Gwaine asks Ellie as he shakes his head. “Really as recalcitrant as an old mule.”

Ellie smiles sheepishly, but bobs her head up and down in confirmation.

That night Arthur watches Merlin pack up. It's not as if Merlin has brought a lot of stuff to Arthur's so he few items he does have disappear in his rucksack with extreme ease. When Merlin's done, there's almost no trace of him left in Arthur's flat, only Merlin himself, sitting on the sofa in his pyjamas.

“Do you want me to drive you to Kings Cross tomorrow morning?” Arthur asks, as he wanders the room, tea in hand.

Merlin slips a book in his rucksack and looks up. “Arthur, you don't have to.”

“Hey,” Arthur says, “you'd do it for a mate.”

“You already wake up so bleeding early,” Merlin says, his mouth tilted in a moue of indecision.

“Exactly, half an hour isn't going to change a thing.”

“Only, if you're sure.”

“I'm bloody sure, Merlin.”

Since Merlin's train leaves at seven, they both turn in early. The night is unspeakably long, Arthur's thoughts churning like mand.

The rain on the windscreen breaks into a myriad tiny droplets that patter down the glass like tears. A leaf fallen from a nearby tree whose branches arch over pavement settles on the windscreen. Arthur considers the shape and colour of it, before swishing it aside with the wipers.

“So,” Merlin says, running his hands up and down his jeans, “see you in a month?”

As Gwaine and Elena's words echo in his mind, Arthur nods his head and drums his fingers on the wheel in a serrated rhythm. “I guess that when the festival's done and dusted, you're coming back.”

“Don't I always?” Merlin says, his cheeks acquiring dimples.

“Yeah, yeah, you do.”

After having made a grab for his luggage, Merlin opens the car door, but doesn't step out. “So, I should be off then,” he says, but lingers.

This time Arthur turns. In that moment he wants to share the truth with Merlin with all that he has. He closes his eyes and tells himself he should really do so. Gwaine and Elena weren't entirely wrong in saying he needs to take chances. But his relationship with Merlin does work as it is, and Arthur doesn't begrudge him the occasional dalliance. How could he when he's nothing but a friend to Merlin? What he couldn't bear is to lose Merlin for good. That, he's sure, is what would happen if Merlin reacted badly to his confession. Not so much because he thinks Merlin would be anything other than kind and tactful about rejecting him but because Arthur knows he couldn't bear looking him in the face if the truth came out and he just got Merlin's pity. “Sure.”

“I'll Skype,” Merlin says, setting his foot on the pavement. “And be on Facebook chat whenever I get wi-fi.”

Arthur juts his jaw. “With all this social media pestering I'm sure I won't even miss you.”

Merlin's eyes slit and his smile thins though it doesn't completely crumble. “I do know you're too much of a workaholic to find the time to miss me in a paltry little month.” He hugs his rucksack to him and grabs the bag that's lying on the car mat. “Well, I'll see you when I see you,” Merlin says, giving him a half-botched military salute before he takes off.

His stomach falling, feeling like shit because he's just soured Merlin's day with his piss-poor attitude, Arthur leans over the wheel and tries to call Merlin back, but by then Merlin's figure has already become a blur in the streaming crowd. “Fuck it,” Arthur says, scrubbing a hand down his face, before he sets the car back into gear. “Fuck my stupid mouth.”

 

****

 

7

 

Elyan puts down his fork and picks up his vibrating phone. When he sees the display, he smiles effusively and says, “Hello, baby. Yes, I'll pick you up at nine.” His smiles widens, sweetens till it looks positively beaddled. “Of course. You don't know how much I'm looking forward to this. Yes, yes, okay. Bye baby.”

Arthur wings an eyebrow, but doesn't stop shifting his salad in his plate.

Done with the phone, Elyan picks up his fork, spears a handful of wax beans, and then sets his fork back down again. “I suppose I forgot to tell you about the big strides in my relationship with Drea.”

“I gather you're together now?” Arthur says, the tendon in his neck tensing as he pours himself some water he proceeds to drink. “Officially?”

“Yeah,” Elyan says, picking up his i-phone, tapping on the Facebook app and logging into his account. “Look here.”

Arthur does. What he sees is Elyan's page. His profile picture features him and Drea making kissy faces at each other, their lips puckered in such an exaggerated way it's sure to be just for show, to wrest a laugh from their audience of friends. Elyan's status, which Arthur remembers to have previously been NA, has now changed to 'in a relationship.' For that matter, Elyan's cover photo is another hymn to fresh love. It portrays Elyan and Drea hugging on a beach, the sun setting behind them. In the past, hell, up to a few weeks ago, Arthur would have thought the whole set-up extremely cheesy. Today he can only appreciate Elyan and Drea's happy, slightly out of focus smile, and they way they lovingly lean into each other. It moves something deep inside him and gives a kick to his heart.  
“I'm happy for you,” Arthur says, when he's done surveying the page he's been shown. “Truly.”

“Thank you,” Elyan says, tipping his head up as though in mild surprise. “I know I shouldn't become one of those obnoxious people who always talk about how in love they are... but you only live once and I can't not appreciate this gift.”

Arthur balls up his napkin. “No, you're right. You're doing the right thing.”

“See,” Elyan says, resting back against his chair now that he has Arthur's agreement and gesticulating with his cutlery, “I believe love is the greatest blessing of all and if that makes me absurdly romantic, so be it.”

His chair clattering backwards, Arthur stands up. He has nearly no breath when he says, “Yes! You're absolutely right.” He has to talk over the frantic tattoo his heart is playing in his ear when he adds, “Elyan, could you tell Mr Albion I'm signing off earlier today? And that I may not be in the office at all on Monday?”

“Arthur,” Elyan asks, leaning forward with an elbow on the table, “are you ill or something?”

Yes,” Arthur says, in a strange declaratory fashion. “I've been struck by an incurable form of madness.” With these words, he skedaddles out of the canteen, nearly setting a girl bearing an overloaded tray off her course to her table.

Though it would probably be advisable, Arthur doesn't even stop home to change or get his things, but dives into the tube at Cannon Street in all the glory of his work suit. After two rush hour changes – which mean more elbows in the ribs than he can count – he arrives at King's Cross in time to buy a ticket for one of the last departing trains to York. Unfortunately, he's got to change at Leeds and this gets him to York at too late an hour to catch the Grand Central bus to the village of Ealdor, where Merlin's staying to cut on his expenses. Since it's late night and he can't possibly wait in the bus shelter till morning, he takes a room in a cheap hotel.

The walls are an ugly, washed-out lime green on which the outlines of various midges' bodies – crushed by either hand or shoe – still stand out. Arthur also has a feeling the sheets haven't been changed since the room's latest occupants came and went. Besides that, the the top blanket comes in the ugliest floral print Arthur has ever seen, with large puke-yellow roses gaping open like carnivorous man-eating monsters.

Out of hygiene concerns, Arthur sleeps on the edge on the mattress, with his arms crossed and his hands stuck under his armpits. Because he has no luggage, he doesn't change for the night. He merely sheds his shirt and makes do, dozing off in the tee he was wearing under his other clothes.

He doesn't sleep well, waking every hour or so to check the glowing alarm clock placed on the desk opposite the bed. The blaring red numbers keep confirming that it's still insanely early. Between moments of dazed wakefullness, he does dream, but his are dreams of incredible lucidity that feature Merlin laughing at him or jeering at him and other variations thereof. Before some pale light washes into the room, Arthur is up and about. He performs a quick trip to the bathroom to relieve himself, shower, and rinse his mouth with some water.

A perfunctory look in the mirror tells him that he has baggy circles under his eyes and that his five o’clock shadow has become a stubborn stubble that makes a rasping sound when he passes his hand over his chin. Wow, he grimaces, he's really at his best here. After having combed his hair with his fingers, he pulls on yesterday's shirt and calls himself ready, though he probably looks like the reject of a rave party.

He catches the 7-something bus to Ealdor and gets there at around half past eight. The village is as quaint as it comes, with its Tudor buildings, grey-clapboard church whose spire you can see from the opposite end of the high street, and surrounding green that shines in lush tints even in the morning mist.

To locate the B&B Merlin's staying at, Arthur uses the Google Maps app his Samsung phone came with and with it the last of his mobile's battery. A paved path leads down to a brick and timber building, neat little plants in flower beds either side of a red-lacquered door. A large ornate knocker in the shape of snake or dragon – or some other reptile, Arthur's no expert – hangs in the centre of the door.

At the reception desk he finds a woman whose name tag says she's Mithian. To her Arthur says, “Hello.” Knowing he must look as though he's in a state, he brushes a hand through his hair from front to back. “I'm looking for Mr Emrys. I, um, am a friend of his from London.”

Mithian smiles helpfully in the way receptionists do. “I'm afraid you just missed him. He left ten minutes ago.”

“Oh,” Arthur says, hanging his head at a loss for what to do. He should probably have thought this through. As it is, Merlin is likely to be out all day, as he generally is when he's out of town working. Arthur has no working mobile, charger, or change of clothes, and might come to smell pretty ripe in a few hours. It's one hell of a fucking plight to be in. “I see.”

Mithian picks up pen and paper and a little pre-printed form, “If you give me your name, I'll note it down and leave it in our message box for Mr Emrys to find.”

“Arthur Pendragon,” Arthur says, more than a little vacantly.

“You're Arthur,” Mithian says, with a gasp of recognition, her eyes getting a fraction bigger.

“Yeah,” Arthur says, more confused than before and not getting why his name matters now. “That's me.”

“Look,” Mithian says, capping her pen and pushing her little pre-printed notepad aside. “I'm off in half an hour and I happen to know where Merlin is. I'll drop you there.”

“Really?” Arthur says with more enthusiasm than he's displayed since drastically declaring to Elyan that he'd be off for the weekend. “You would do that for me?”

“Sure,” Mithian says, winking before she has to turn to two new customers.

The festival is going to be held in Darkling Park, Mithian explains as she drives him there, across snaking country roads that roll and dip either side of the dual carriageway. She hopes, she says with some enthusiasm as she taps the rhythm of a song on her steering wheel, that the festival will bring lots of people to Ealdor and the neighbouring villages. “It's a good thing, you know,” she adds, as though Arthur's objected to her proposition. “Boosts tourism.”

“I have no doubt.”

“And Merlin's line-up his fab,” she says, sharing a smile with him.

“Yeah,” Arthur says, though he can't say he knows everything about Merlin's plans or about the genre music the artists he gets together play. “He's good at that.”

Darkling Park seems pretty big, Arthur thinks, scanning its confines from the road.

“I think there's maps at the entrance,” Mithian says once she has stopped the car at its gates. “I know they've built three stages in different areas. Check out those first.”

“I will,” Arthur says, before getting out of the car. “Thank you.”

"Any time," Mithian says, before driving off.

In the end Arthur finds Merlin on the newly erected first stage. He's standing there, talking to a bunch of people, some of whom are wearing suits and have clipboards in their hands they gaze at from time to time. The others look like band types with their crazy hair-dos, scruffy tee shirts and scruffier trainers.

It's Merlin though that Arthur's eyes lock on.

When he sees him, Arthur experiences a moment of total paralysis, his breath stopped at the tip of his stomach. He's come so far and he knows why he has. What he doesn't know is what happens next. It's a bit, Arthur believes though he has no comparable experience under his belt, similar to the sensation you must you feel before parachuting yourself out of a moving plane.

“Hell, I've come so far,” he mutters, his ears ringing persistently. Then he cups his mouth and yells, “Merlin!”

In the open Arthur's voice carries perfectly and rather powerfully and the people on the stage stop doing whatever they were at. They all look up in unison, confused expressions painting themselves on the smartly dressed people's faces, bored ones on the music types'.

With a frown of confusion, Merlin walks to the end of the stage. “Arthur, what are you doing here?”

The bemused looks on the faces of the people standing behind Merlin impressing upon him how bad an idea this probably was overall, Arthur says as much as he can without sounding completely unhinged. “I needed to talk to you but I can wait.”

Merlin turns his head back at his companions then looks down at Arthur. “Has something happened?”

Arthur walks closer to his stage, waving his hands about in denial. “No, no, I swear there is no reason for you to worry. Just go back to doing what you were doing. I can wait here, till you're finished.”

Merlin cocks his head to the side as though he's not buying what Arthur's selling, but he nods and says, “Okay, right, as long as there's no emergency.”

Arthur puts a hand on his heart. “No emergency, promise.”

“In that case, I'll finish over there and then be with you.”

By mid morning they end up walking side by side on a grassy path that smells like moss and that coasts a murky pond, the as yet bare branches of the trees surrounding this speck of water arching over them as they walk. “So,” Merlin says, as he sinks his hands into his pockets, “you came up to spend the weekend or...”

“No, not exactly,” Arthur says, slowly wagging his head from left to right in denial. “I mean it mostly depends on you...”

“If you wanted a break from the city, you could have told me,” Merlin says, stealing an inquisitive and still mildly confused sideways look at him, dead leaves that have the composition of mulch crunching and rustling under his foot. “I'd have invited you.”

Arthur stops, he hangs his head, and sniffs sharply. “It's not that. I...” He looks up because there is no way he can say this without looking Merlin in the eyes, come what may. “I've come because I had to and I don't think I really let myself think past getting here. I just acted, which, as you know, isn't that much like me...”

Merlin opens his eyes wide, letting Arthur see the play of emotion that stirs them.

Arthur doesn't know how to interpret it though. He realises Merlin must have guessed something. Arthur's declaration together with his impromptu dash north must have clued him in. What Arthur's not sure of is whether the display of feeling in Merlin's eyes is because he's in the same boat as Arthur or because he wants to reject him without making him suffer too much.

Either way, Arthur can't stand the suspense any longer. As Merlin's nervy, distraught gaze sears him with its need for the truth, Arthur sucks in a powerful, dizzying breath and says, “I've come because I couldn't bottle it all up any longer. And I haven't done this to pull a grand gesture and force you to say yes, but because I was going bonkers keeping it secret. It's not honest and not at all good and it's like--” He punches his chest a couple of times where his heart is. “God, it's like there's this massive boulder that has been placed right over here and I can't. Can't breathe properly. So there...”

Merlin sniffs a loud breath through his nostrils and his eyes get keen. “Arthur,” he croaks, and he sounds as scratchy as he does when he's suffering from a bout of the flu or when he sings himself raw after a concert.

“You're not just my friend,” Arthur says, trying to explain, fanning his hand about before groundlessly scratching at his forehead. “That's not how I see you anymore.”

“What?” Merlin says after he's gulped, nearly voiceless with tears he hasn't shed but that sound rich in his throat.

Arthur closes his eyes, living his make-it-or break it moment to the fullest. There it goes. the plunge, except this isn't like parachuting himself out of a plane at all. This is like jumping without having a parachute strapped to your back. “I think I care for you,” he says at last, as low as he can, his voice coming from deep in his throat. “I think I love you.”

 

****

 

8

 

As though hit by a powerful punch, Merlin stumbles backwards, clapping a hand over his mouth.

“Merlin,” Arthur says, taking a step towards him, a sudden sinking feeling making his lower body feel like granite that he has to move through molasses to get to Merlin.

“How--” Merlin says, voice raspy, eyes wet. “How long have you been feeling like that?”

“The past two years, longer perhaps,” Arthur says, going back over the memories that go into making the history of his heart. “Though I've only been consciously admitting it since you crashed at mine.”

“Why--” Merlin wets his lips, then does it again, as though the words can't stumble past his mouth unless he smooths their passage. “Why did you wait so long? Did you have doubts?”

Though not knowing how Merlin feels right now is like walking on coals – barefoot – and though this isn't going how he'd hoped it would, Arthur is quick to reply. “No, not about you.” He stops for a moment, aware that that's not the honest truth. “I had doubts about what you said, about you wanting me, your life-style considered.”

“My life-style?” Merlin's eyes are still glossy with the sheen of tears, but his lips curl up in disdain. “So what, I'm what? Too poor, too lazy, too much of a mess?”

He tears away before Arthur can tell him that he's none of those things, that he's actually wonderful and lovely and that his smile motivates Arthur to brave all obstacles, all hardships, and even his plain, boring every day life. Before he can disappear from his line of sight, Arthur gets a move on and catches up with him. “Wait, wait, no. That's not what I meant at all!”

Merlin whirls round, but keeps walking backwards. His eyes are moist at the sides, where the tear ducts are, and his face is a mask of tension, lines etched in his cheeks, shadows hollowing them. “Then what do you mean?”

“The sleeping around!” Arthur finds himself saying, his voice higher and less calm than he wants it to be. The last thing he wants is to be shouting at Merlin, but that's exactly what he's doing.

Merlin looks away from him, his hands forming fists at his side. “Am I getting this right? Are you calling me easy?”

“No--” Arthur holds his hand up. “That's now what I meant.”

“Because I've slept around, yeah,” Merlin says, his mouth twisting thinly sideways. “Because I thought there was nothing wrong with it and this friend I had that I might have really wanted, really desperately loved, well, he was out of my league and I might as well--”

Arthur's chest tightens and hope spears through him. “Merlin,” he says and has to swallow to make his voice work.

“But then some six months ago I stopped doing even that,” Merlin says, self deprecation tightening his voice. “Because I didn't want casual anymore. I wanted what I couldn't have and everything else seemed pointless.”

“Merlin,” Arthur says, his voice broken on a tailspin of emotion.

“No.” Merlin lifts his head, and for a moment there he appears gaunt – his highly sculpted cheekbones a hard line – tired. “And now you're throwing that back in my face. Why, I'm the idiot you always say I am.”

His face broken into an ugly moue, Merlin stalks off, leaving Arthur reeling, an empty vacuum sucking at his insides.

The band members offer them a lift back to Ealdor. On the way there, Arthur and Merlin don't talk, a gangly youth called Doug or Daegal sits very erectly between them and represents the perfect barrier and the perfect excuse for their silence. For most of the drive Merlin looks out the window while Arthur discreetly grits his teeth, his muscles stiffening, his heart doing the same with a mixture of self-reproach and indignation. He knows he should not have said what he did, but he's also convinced Merlin should have made an effort to understand that he hadn't meant anything wrong by that.

When they get to Ealdor, Arthur tells the band person driving to drop him in the main square. People carrier left behind at the kerb, pushing his collar up, hands stuck deep in his pocket, Arthur takes powerful strides up-street towards the station. His head down, the wind races against his face and whistles in his ears. Its sound is so pervasive and Arthur's thoughts quite so loud that he almost doesn't hear Merlin when he shouts, “Arthur, stop.”

Arthur doesn't, ploughing down the street with his head bowed like a charging bull.

“Don't be like that and face this,” Merlin yells after him

Arthur's heart pulsates with loud thuds that hurt in his chest. He stops. “You put the worst spin to my doubts,” Arthur says without lifting his head. “Why can't you understand it's daunting?”

Merlin's voice sounds closer. “Why can't you understand,” he says hesitantly, “that sometimes it's hard to make yourself believe and that it's easier to go for the opportunities that drop in your lap rather than for what you'd have to fight for – with little chance of winning?”

Affection balloons inside Arthur, becoming everything he is right in that moment. “You don't have to fight for me.”

“No?” Merlin asks, “because right now it seems to me that I have.”

Arthur reviews their positions, tries to look at the situation from Merlin's point of view. He sees himself as he is, about to flee back home with his tail between his legs because he doesn't have the guts to mediate, preferring to nurse his heart instead of fighting. And all that when he came so close to breaking Merlin's. “No, you don't,” Arthur says, turning around. “You're right. I'm being a coward right now. I just... You matter to me and of all things I can't bear losing, or face the thought of losing, you're the most important.”

“I don't like being at cross purposes with you,” Merlin says then with a smile that isn't easy but heart-breaking and moving. “Because I love you, Arthur. I really do. So perhaps talking is hard.” Merlin bites down on his lower lip. “But I'm ready to.”

“One question at a time?”

“One question at a time.”

They spend the rest of the day together, walking around the village, talking, clearing matters up between them. It's not easy being this honest, having no walls, lowering your guard and having someone else know just how much they can hurt you. Merlin hasn't only slithered past all of Arthur's defences, he has burrowed into his marrow, disassembled him, and created a brand new Arthur that isn't quite the same person he was before Merlin. He can't hide behind a construct of stoic dignity anymore.

But it's all right because Merlin smiles at him like Arthur's the best person he's ever gonna meet. His words make Arthur's heart grow ten times bigger. They're complete declarations of love – not always in so many words -- and they touch him to the quick, making the world a little bit perfect. And at the end of the day Arthur can make himself vulnerable if that's what he gets in return.

“Are we all right then?” Merlin says, slowly taking his hand as they walk.

Arthur concentrates on Merlin's touch, the shape of his hand, the warmth of his palm, the pressure of Merlin's fingers on his. “Yes, we're all right.”

“And you don't think I'm all wrong for you?” Merlin asks. “You'd not rather choose someone without my past?”

Arthur stops, smiles and traces a finger over Merlin's cheek. “Merlin, I was stupid and perhaps a bit jealous, and kept thinking you'd had so much variety that you must have found way better blokes than me. I know I have faults--”

“For a self-assured guy, you doubt yourself too much, Arthur,” Merlin says, an eyebrow arched to make a point, as if to say 'see, I know you'.

“And I couldn't see how you were willing to work past that.” He smiles and lets it be the most addled smile he has ever flashed anyone. “But you seem to be okay with me...”

“I don't know why,” Merlin says flippantly, rolling his eyes, which are twinkling with a brilliance bound to take Arthur's breath away, “but so I am.”

“And nothing else matters.”

Sheer love flickers in Merlin's eyes.

“Besides, all that's come before, all that past experience, has gone into making you you,” Arthur says, pressing two fingers against Merlin's chest, where his heart is. “And I want you to always be you.”

Merlin surprises him with a kiss. It's their first ever. And it's everything Arthur thinks a kiss ought to be. It starts softly, Merlin's lips barely brushing against his. But then Arthur takes in a sharp breath and Merlin smiles against the shape of his mouth. Arthur's heart beats fitfully in his chest, in start-stopping wrenches that would concern him if he wasn't living one of the most beautiful moments in his life and thus allowed to be a bit crazy about it. Their noses touch and their lips rub together, drag and catch.

As they kiss, happiness unfolds inside Arthur, a bright flare of it starting right in in chest, lancing him, making him tremble in place with the great beauty that this kiss is. Merlin's lips slide over his, then his tongue parts them and Merlin's pressing tentatively against his, testing him, until all hesitancy is let go of and the kiss roughens. Soon enough Merlin's bruising the flesh of Arthur's lower lip, sucking on his tongue, following it up with small bites he takes of his lips that whip electricity up Arthur's spine.

Their jaws scraping one against the other, Arthur's senses get fogged up. He cups Merlin's neck, toying with the hair that curl at his nape. “I need more of this,” he says in a rather savage rasp of a voice. “Much more of this, of you.”

“I'm taking that as an invitation to take you to my room,” Merlin says, gently swiping a thumb across Arthur's chin.

“You should definitely take it that way.”

“Let's hurry then,” Merlin murmurs into his ear, kissing his earlobe right next.

That, most of all, puts a spring to Arthur's step. “Yeah, let's.” He grabs Merlin's hand and makes for Merlin's B&B.

“Er, Arthur?” Merlin says, tugging on his hand. “Dragon's Lodge's the other way.”

Merlin's room is tiny, but it's bright and the bed is big enough to occupy nearly all of it, and soft looking. “Perfect,” Arthur says.

“You are,” Merlin says, dancing up to him, putting both hands on his shoulders and giving a nip to his lips. He blushes too. “Perfect.”

“Idiot,” Arthur says nearly falling back into their usual groove, until, that is, Merlin presses his body against Arthur's, his breath fanning lightly against his cheek. That is so very much not part of their routine that Arthur is reminded once again that their relationship has now changed in a way that thrills him to the core, while featuring the same essentials as before. Right now he's quite keen to explore all these new facets.

Merlin appears to be on the same page as he is, because with heart-melting softness he presses his warm lips against Arthur's cheeks, moving them along Arthur's skin with shattering tenderness, until he's traced an imaginary line across Arthur's cheek and come to nuzzle Arthur's earlobe into his mouth.

At that Arthur gets hard fast. “Merlin,” he breathes out like a lost soul, and pulls Merlin to him, placing his hands either side of Merlin's lovely, quirky face so he can better position him for the kiss that follows.

Arthur's lips move on top of Merlin's, opening Merlin's mouth to his tongue. This kiss is warm and hungry, makes their breathing ragged, the rise of their chests a staccato that comes in snatches. Arthur's chest tightens so much he's gasping in surprise at how much he's feeling, how much Merlin means to him, so bloody much there's little else.

Little else but touching him, running his fingers through Merlin's hair, palming the breadth of his shoulder, kneading the muscles that bunch up with the tension of pleasure. Because he wants Merlin so much, has been wanting him for so long that his need for him has become like a second skin, he feverishly pulls Merlin to him and brushes his lips across his throat, past the roughness of nascent stubble to find the softer spots at its base.

With hands that shake just as much as Arthur's, Merlin pushes Arthur's jacket off his shoulders and then attacks his shirt, undoing the buttons one by one with a feverishness that's bound to snap a few of them right off the thread. Not that Arthur cares. He wants to feel skin on skin, get the pulse of Merlin's warmth as it slides close to him.

The physical presence of him makes Arthur's heart roll over in his chest, ache with such a pure ache it's welcome. Because he can't not, he reaches out to reciprocate, divesting Merlin of his shirt. His hands fumble it with their shakes, but in the end he manages to bare Merlin's chest.

Their years of friendship taken into consideration, it isn't a new sight. Merlin's lean, angular shape is known to him in all its spareness. But in this context it's all brand new and much more breath-taking, though the pang of familiarity – of Merlin, love, home – is what really undoes him, lets him know that he's about to have everything he's ever wanted. “God, I want you.”

“Well, you have me,” Merlin says with such killer honesty Arthur is left babbling so that all he can do to stop himself from sounding like an utter moron is kiss Merlin again, catching his lips in a slow glide and slide.

They undress each other, stopping now and again to rid themselves of further items of clothing, to avoid the en route furniture, or for slow deep kisses that melt Arthur's guts. Once they're nude, they move up the the bed, the mattress giving under their weight.

Merlin maps Arthur's shoulders with his mouth, lays open kisses down his chest and suckles on the skin of his thighs, raising marks that will bloom with a low ache in the very near future. His mouth makes Arthur's lips quiver in successive breathy gasps, and his legs tremble in instinctive spasms.

"You're so fit," Merlin tells him. “I've always thought you the most gorgeous guy I've ever seen,” Merlin says, tracing a collarbone with his open mouth, slowly sucking at his nipples as he trails his fingers along his sides.

Arthur clears his throat. “Merlin.”

“Yeah?” Merlin says, fully sitting into his lap now.

“I can't,” Arthur says, looking at the ceiling because he can't look at Merlin, hard and on top of him, without coming. “I can't. I can't stand it. I need--” Fuck, he needs everything, all of Merlin, possibly now.

“What do you need?” Merlin asks, looking up, moving on top of him, a catch and slide of skin, before he sucks on Arthur's lips. “What? Tell me. I'll give you everything you want. I want to give you everything.”

From anyone else that would have comes across as trite, facile, like something to say to please ther person you're in bed with. A phrase used to flatter, to work your partner up. Coming from Merlin it's real and moving. It's more than Arthur can stand. “You,” he says, made stupid by Merlin, by his body, by the look in his eyes, by that smile of his that pushes divots into his cheeks. “I want you.”

“Gotcha,” Merlin says, smiling before licking and sucking at his lip once again, inside his mouth. He shifts and their cocks touch.

Arthur's eyes sting with the shiver of pleasure. With one hand he grabs Merlin's hip, with the other the snowy duvet. “Now.”

“Okay, give me a sec,” Merlin says, colour high across the bridge of his nose, like a slapdash brush of paint. “Got to get a condom, and lube.”

“Do you have them?”

“Yeah, in my wallet,” Merlin says, before pushing off Arthur to get the stuff. "I used to always have them, just in case, and they stayed in there."

When Merlin comes back, Arthur hooks a leg over his shoulder. As they get positioned, he doesn't say anything, swallows against the flash of heat in his cheeks, the one that comes on the heels of self-consciousness, the knowledge of what he's doing, which amounts to laying himself utterly open. It's nothing to the way Merlin's fingers make his chest burn. That wakes his mind to a terrifying yearning.

Merlin's touch is light at first – cool like dew, shiver evoking. It becomes steadfast, then incendiary. Arthur's lungs can't get enough breath. His body suffers continuous little shocks of pleasure, on and off, quicker and quicker, escalating. It goes on and on till Arthur feels himself get looser and his cock gets wet with the pre-come he oozes.

“Hey,” Merlin tells him low and soft, climbing the length of his body, his breath fanning warm against Arthur's lips. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Arthur says between a long, in drawn breath and the next, his voice wrecked already. “Yeah, you?”

“I'm not well at all,” Merlin says, his lips quirked. “My heart is going at two thousand miles per minute and it's scary as fuck, but--” He wets his lips -- “not quite as much as the thought of letting you down.”

“Can't--” Arthur says, wetting lips that are dry along the seam, all the sweat pooling under his nose. “You can't. There's-- You can't. You're not built to.”

“So you...” Merlin arches his eyebrow. ..“want me to.”

“Hell, yes.”

Merlin looks at him then, and it's like an unsustainable wash of pure love. Arthur's not sure he can return that gaze and have his soul not crack in a million shards. But it's all right because Merlin bends down to kiss him and like that he's too close for any more intense gazing.

Merlin kisses him with lips that stay devastatingly soft and pliant, his tongue warm and slick and slow in Arthur's mouth. There's no hesitation in Arthur, he kisses right back. His worlds scales down to Merlin, his taste and his smell, and his weight and the feel of his skin. It leaves Arthur shaken and aching and ready. He reaches out and learns Merlin's body with his hands: Merlin's back, his buttocks, the back of his thighs, all lean muscle and damp skin. 

Wanting, starving, he pushes up into him.

Easily, like they've mutely agreed to the pace they're going to take this at, Merlin slides between his legs. As Arthur rolls his hips, Merlin pushes down. He's in with one motion and they're both trembling then, both breaking in sweat that's both cold and furnace-hot with the intensity of sex.

“You fine?” Merlin asks, in a thready, shredded voice.

“Uh, uh,” is all Arthur can say, heart in his throat, sweat at his temples and in his eyes. “Ah.”

Merlin moves in him, and against Arthur's stiff cock in their belly to belly motion. Arthur gets hungry for a touch memory of Merlin, and a little bit mad to boot, so he drags his hands up Merlin's sides, across his shoulders, and down his spine, notch by single notch.

“Oh my god,” Merlin says, “My god, my beautiful, Arthur, I...” He deluges Arthur with words, some of them are imprecations, some are endearments. And then there are the throaty, thrumming, needy noises that Merlin makes. At first Arthur tries not to produce more of the same, to curb his tongue, because if he spills what's in his heart, he'll breathe out vows of never-ending love. But then he, too, starts stuttering words and touches and wet sounds.

By trial and error they find a rhythm to call theirs, one that's all slow rolls and strokes, one that's indecently decadent and that seemingly stops Arthur's heart on more than one occasion. Without a say from his higher brain functions, Arthur's body seeks Merlin's, finds his in insistent grinds that give his cock enough friction he starts to leak come and to ache in determined throbs.

He's already sinking into a complete haze of devastating pleasure, when Merlin's tempo changes, gets shot into a faster pace that wrecks all of Arthur's nerve endings, that makes him respond with more animal fury. His touch definitely hungrier now, he digs his blunt nails into Merlin's sides, short of his hip, and perches his heel on Merlin's calf, egging him on.

“Fuck, Arthur, you're so,” Merlin starts, all strained, a grimace of concentration pulling at his face, his body going taut with effort, “so tight, so...”

“Harder,” Arthur says, low and breathy, his hands sliding up Merlin's rolling, flexing back, feeling each knobby bump, skin shifting and gliding under his thumbs as he drags them up and into his damp hair, which he tugs at with so much intent it must hurt. By then he can't keep it in, can't rein it in, not now when everything's brighter and quick, and aligh with perfection. He bears down, takes Merlin in as far as he can.

Merlin thrusts his hips sharply, in little powerful bursts that make him red in the face and make of his breath a deluge of sobs. He winces as though he's in pain and his teeth show. When he slams himself forward, his fringe covers his eyes. “I--” he says and not much else that isn't a huff.

It's when Merlin's hand lands on his cock at the same time he works his length in at a deeper angle that Arthur really starts to lose it, with Merlin's fist rolling over the fat, spongy head of Arthur’s prick in repeated passes. Arthur just can't. There's a magnitude to this, a scope, like he's losing himself in the love he has for Merlin, that makes every other consideration almost strangely secondary. 

So while he feels the warmth that comes just before orgasm spread in his belly fast, it's not that that actually makes him come. It's this startling feeling of brutal affection he experiences when he watches Merlin's face scrunch up in pleasure that makes him climax. It's the bone-deep devotion that burrows into his insides when Merlin shudders into aftershocks that really does it for him.

It’s startling, in the sense that it's never happened to him before, not quite like this, but then it makes sense because he doesn't think he's quite had someone like Merlin before, because he hasn't quite felt just the same as he has for anyone as he has for Merlin, through the years, through thick and thin.

“All right?” Merlin asks, slumping on top of him, eyelids coming down in a fast tremble of lashes, Merlin's bulk pinning him ever so stickily to the bed.

“That was--” Arthur smiles a secret smile to himself. “ – quite passable.”

Merlin huffs, but doesn't exchange any banter with him, the puff of his breath against Arthur's shoulder enough of a protest on his part.

“I'll amend after round two,” Arthur says.

All further attempts at humour are culled by Merlin's sweet kiss to his temple. After that Arthur can only let himself sleep, or the declaration that would slip out of his mouth would be so emphatic, so immense he'd probably convince Merlin he's quite mad.

As he slowly drifts off, he feels Merlin relax against him too.

 

****

 

Epilogue

 

“So why aren't you drinking to us?” Merlin asks, tilting his eyebrow sharply as he looks past Elena and Gwaine and at the bar. “We drank to you, didn't we, Arthur?”

Since he's a bit embarrassed about this toasting new relationships thing, Arthur lifts a shoulder. Though because teasing Gwaine's always incontorvertibly right, he says, “He isn't wrong.”

“Well,” says Gwaine, scrubbing a hand down his nape, “technically that doesn't count.”

“And why wouldn't that count?” Merlin asks, quite ready to press the point and take the piss if he can.

“Well, that's because,” Elena answers on Gwaine's behalf, “we lied a bit.”

“You what?” Arthur asks, because Elena's words make him instantly suspicious.

Gwaine looks at the bar with longing, sighs, then holds his hands up. “All right, all right, I'll confess."

“Yeah,” Elena says, blushing furiously, “it wouldn't be quite right otherwise.”

“What?” Merlin asks, looking from Elena to Gwaine in utter confusion. “What wouldn't be quite right?”

“Oh fuck it,” Gwaine says, probably because he finds it easier to explain things if he starts with a swear word. “It wouldn't be right because we lied to you. We lied to you when we said we'd got together.”

“Because when we said that, we weren't,” Elena supplies.

“So you what?” Merlin's eyebrows converge. “Told us you were a couple so that we what? Would get jealous?”

“More like so that you'd get a move on,” Gwaine says, casting his eyes heavenwards. “You were so slow making your declarations of mutual eternal love--”

Both Arthur and Merlin share a look and make gagging noises.

“--that we thought, Elena and I, that we should drop a hint.”

“A massive one,” says Elena, nodding wisely.

“Recreating the exact same scenario you were living,” Gwaine says, spreading his arms either side of the booth they're sitting at. “Long standing friendship, forced sharing of quarters...”

Elena bobs her head once more, nose up in the air just as her index is. “We thought it would be highly suggestive.”

“Like an anvil falling right from the sky.”

Elena hums her approval. “You know, lead by example.”

“So you're not together?” Merlin asks, jerking his thumb in the air and at the space separating Elena and Gwaine.

Gwaine pulls Elena to him, his arm now firmly around her. “Oh, now we are.”

“We just weren't then,” Elena finishes for him. “That was a farce.”

“But we liked the farce so much,” Gwaine says, kissing Elena's cheek, “that we gave it a stab.”

Merlin rakes a hand through his hair. “Oh shit, this is deeply mental.”

“I agree,” Arthur says, because he can't think of a more convoluted thought process than Elena and Gwaine's.

“Oi, all's well,” Gwaine says, kicking Arthur right on the shin, using the cover the table offers.

Arthur frowns and retaliates. Unaware of the secret under-the-table warfare, Merlin claps his hands together and starts laughing like a fiend. Only when he's quite done, that is when he's endearingly tomato red and quite wheezing, does he say, “So shouldn't we have a celebratory toast all the same, since Arthur and me are together and you...” He makes a funnu face. “Stopped play-acting a couple--”

Gwaine lifts a peremptory hand. “On educational grounds.”

“To become an actual couple?” Merlin steams on over Gwaine, because they lived together so long they're practically used to that.

“Yeah, let's have a toast,” Elena agrees. After all, she's always one up for some fun.

At the same time she does, Arthur stands and, as good manners require, goes to the bar to get their beers.

It's only after they've toasted their new status as happy couples, that Gwaine asks the question that probably was on everybody's mind, “So living arrangements... do we stay put where we are, you--" He looks at Merlin suggestively. "--with Arthur and me with Ellie?”

 

The End


End file.
